55 years ago today President John F. Kennedy said:
“I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to the earth.”Sure enough, we met that goal in 1969 when the Apollo 11 crew landed on the moon, just a few months before the decade ended.
Space travel still thrills us, even now that we’re several decades beyond watching astronauts on black-and-white TVs. Earlier this year, NASA astronaut Scott Kelly and Russian cosmonaut Mikhail Kornienko returned from a year-long mission on the International Space Station, studying the impact of extended space voyages on astronauts’ bodies and minds. We watched Kelly juggle fruit in weightlessness and asked him questions about space travel during a Reddit “Ask Me Anything” session.
Today’s teachers and students are fortunate in that we can share the space experience a bit more closely with our astronauts. Kids everywhere, and plenty of grownups, can get a better sense of what it must be like to live in weightlessness, primarily eat only vacuum-packed meals, and look out at the stars and Planet Earth every day. This is the idea behind our newest Expedition, created with NASA, which brings the International Space Station right into the classroom.
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| A view of the Expedition from the teacher's tablet |
To celebrate the anniversary of President Kennedy’s historic call to action, this week we’re introducing the new Expedition to some of the schools taking part in the Expeditions Pioneer program. We’re also showing off the tour at special screenings of the new awe-inspiring IMAX® 3D film, “A Beautiful Planet,” produced and directed by celebrated filmmaker Toni Myers and narrated by Jennifer Lawrence, the star of The Hunger Games films, and featuring breathtaking images of Earth, shot by astronauts aboard the International Space Station.
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| The London special screening of the new awe-inspiring IMAX® 3D film, "A Beautiful Planet" |
